Irish Payments

Under the provisions of the Agreement, contributions paid in Japan can be used to satisfy the PRSI conditions for Irish payments.

However, you must have a minimum amount of Irish PRSI contributions to be eligible to combine Japanese and Irish Social Security contributions.

In the case of State Pension (Contributory), State Pension (Transition), Widow's or Widower's (Contributory) Pension and Invalidity Pension, you will need to have worked in Ireland and have a minimum of 52 Irish contributions paid or credited.

Once these conditions are satisfied a formula (see below) is used in order to establish the rate payable for:

State Pension (Contributory),

State Pension (Transition),

Invalidity Pension, and

Widow's and Widower's (Contributory) Pension.

Formula for calculating pension where Irish and Japanese contributions are involved.

Total number of Irish contributionsmultiplied byAmount of pension due if all the contributions were made in Irelandand then divide byTotal combined contributions in Ireland and Japan.

The social insurance conditions vary slightly depending on the other country or countries involved.

Example

The following is an example of how we work out a pension if you have social insurance paid both in Ireland and Japan.

You have 280 Irish and 560 Japanese contributions over 35 years from the date you started insurable employment up to the end of the tax year before you reach pension age.

Step 1

We work out the 'notional' pension that you would get if your contributions, both Irish and Japanese were Irish contributions. To do this, we add together the Irish and Japanese contributions and then we divide the total by the number of years to get the yearly average number of contributions.

Contributions

280 Irish + 560 Japanese

840

840 ÷ 35 years

A yearly average of 24 Irish contributions would give a weekly personal pension of €225.80 (As at January 2010) (notional amount).

Step 2

We multiply the notional pension by the number of Irish contributions and divide the answer by the total number of contributions. This gives the pro-rata pension payment.

Personal amount

€225.80 x 280

€75.27

840

If you qualify to receive an Increase for a Qualified Adult (IQA) with your Irish pension, we multiply the notional amount, including the IQA, by the number of Irish contributions and divide the answer by the total number of contributions.

Personal amount plus Increase for a Qualified Adult under 66

€379.30 x 280

€126.43

840

Guardian's Payment (Contributory), Bereavement Grant

Once entitlement to a Guardian's Payment (Contributory) or Bereavement Grant has been established either by virtue of Irish contributions alone or by a combination of Irish and Japanese, the full appropriate rate is payable.